In this interview with Bhavesh Vaghela, CEO of Paywizard, he offers advice to video providers on how to improve the performance of their business. Much of his advice boils down to one simple goal: make the customer feel wanted.

Some of the Paywizard data discussed in the podcast can be downloaded here.

Chapter 1: About Paywizard (1:00)

Paywizard is a billing and business intelligence company. It helps pay TV and online video providers manage their subscribers and their experience of the service. The company has recently announced a new platform for video businesses called Singula. It is a business intelligence tool leveraging AI and data to improve for video business performance.

Chapter 2: How to improve video businesses performance (2:30)

Mr. Vaghela says that operators need to focus on much more than just the content. It’s important to be aware of the whole experience throughout the customer journey. He says there are three areas of friction for the customer that are problematic for providers:

Billing problems,

Contacting the provider

Canceling service

Chapter 3: Reasons for churn (6:30)

Mr. Vaghela says there is a whole range of issues that can cause people to churn. He says they all boil down to one unasked customer question: Do I matter to you?

Chapter 4: Singula details (8:00)

Singula gathers data from each part of the customer journey and uses it to identify recurrent problems. It then suggests approaches to fix them. Singula can also identify customers that could be receptive to an upgrade, and it can suggest the best way to make the upgrade offer to maximize success.

Chapter 5: The three months matters (12:30)

I have heard operators say getting a customer past three months of service is critical in retaining them for much longer. Mr. Vaghela thinks this time is shrinking. One key tool to keep a customer beyond three months is to be proactive in managing the relationship. For example, if you see someone not watching much content, proactively offer a cheaper package before they cancel. Operators know when a customer is encountering a buffering issue as they use this knowledge to correct the problem. They should also warn the customer they are aware of the problem and are working to fix it.

Mr. Vaghela says provider data is in silos and not connected in a useful way. He also says that there is a prevalent belief that you need to get a lot of data before you can do anything useful. He believes you can do quite a lot with a little data and recommends an operator focus on the data that is key to them to make immediate progress. For example, if you want to reduce churn, check on credit card failures. Mr. Vaghela describes how a provider can build toward a much more data-literate position.

Chapter 7: winning back a canceled customer (18:30)

Mr. Vaghela has some advice on how providers can get ex-subscribers to sign back up for the service. Once again, it all comes back to leveraging the data you have about that ex-customer.